Saturday morning tunes: She says nobody wants to believe

From the first album I ever bought with a parental warning on it (I was so proud!), Elvis Costello and Brian Eno's "My Dark Life."

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Separated at birth: On the descent of conservatism

Separated at birth: 1950s ur-conservative writer/intellectual William F. Buckley Jr., whose legacy has neither aged well nor passed into the hands of people who are up to the job, and 1950s ur-conservative writer/intellectual Ayn Rand, whose legacy has neither aged well nor passed into the hands of people who are up to the job.

(Images: Buckley and Rand.)

The unforgiving minute: "A confused and clueless horde"

I think TNR may have arrived a little late to this particular party.

Historian Michael Kazin looks at recent poll numbers and asks:

[W]hat if millions of independents are really just a confused and clueless horde, whose interest in politics veers between the episodic and the non-existent?

"What if," indeed.

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Return of the short-fingered vulgarian

Hardly seems fair that Donald Trump is still around but Spy Magazine isn't. Still, the magazine will live on in loyal readers' hearts as long as Spy's favorite epithet for The Donald survives.

Today's selections have been hard-boiled and hand-colored, and placed in a basket with the best of this week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, R. J. Matson, Steve Sack, Henry Payne, Adam Zyglis, Gary Varvel, Rob Rogers, Mike Keefe, Randy Bish, Signe Wilkinson, John Cole, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): John Darkow and Mike Luckovich.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), KAL (England), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Yaakov Kirschen (Israel), and Ingrid Rice (Canada).


Ann Telnaes looks at Wall Street's plan for your (nest) egg. (Dear Ann: Still don't like the new site: Can't link to individual animations. Pfah. xoxo bn)


Just in time or Earth Day, Mark Fiore asks: What happened to the mountain?


Taiwan's Next Media Animation reviews the history of slacking air traffic controllers.


You ain't never gonna amount to nothin', Elizabeth Boop! Never been a big Funny or Die fan (here's my estimate), but this video telling the origins of Betty Boop is weirdly hypnotic. It's like one of those Lifetime she-overcame-adversity-and-went-on-to-triumph movies you can get stuck with on the weekends. Only better.


Think of it like the implosion of Charlie Sheen, but much, much nerdier: Scott Adams, the creator of the great-20-years-ago-but-now-feels-like-watching-Leno daily strip Dilbert recently got some unwanted publicity for sharing his thoughts about women; now he's back in the news with a story that's just kind of pathetic.


Think of it as a Turing Test: The Conservabot 9000 us back, and Tom Tomorrow says he passes with flying colors. (And for the non-nerds among you, here's what the Turing Test is about.)


The K Chronicles shows that sometimes fiction really is stranger than truth. (At least we hope so.)


Tom the Dancing Bug looks at the next big thing (which looks suspiciously like the last couple of big things).


Congrats to p3 Sunday Toons regular Mike Keefe, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer for Editorial Cartoons. Comic Riffs has the story, plus his prize-winning portfolio.


At Red Meat, the old cowboy says, "There's only one thing certain in this here life."


Mother Goose & Grimm goes there, and The Comic Curmudgeon is right behind them. Kinda amazes me that this MG&G strip made it into the dailies, really, but the CC has a theory about that, too.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman settles Trump's paperwork problems -- and portrays his fingers as appropriately short, too.


No! Not . . . Happy Birthday! Thanks to Ryan for reminding me of this classic. It's funny as hell, but it gets overlooked because it doesn't feature any regular characters from the Warner Bros stable. Despite the title, "It's Hummer Time," directed in 1950 by Robert McKimson, doesn't (for better or worse) have much to do with hummers; a hummingbird is simply the MacGuffin that leads to the (unnamed) bulldog making the (unnamed) cat pay elaborately ritualized penalties for bothering him. "Hummer Time" has a sequel, titled "Early to Bet;" we'll get to that one next week.

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p3 Bonus Toon: Wait -- is it 1992 again? Could be. Jesse Springer definitely hears a giant sucking sound.

Test your toon-captioning mojo at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Saturday morning tunes: I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax

Clean and neat from 1978: Talking Heads.

And am I the only one who thinks they look really young?

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Separated at birth: "Better get a bucket."

Via yesterday's NYTimes, the governor of New Jersey shares what's been rumbling around inside of him for some time, and it isn't pretty:

Mr. Christie had little political experience to define him when he ran for governor in 2009; he had been a lawyer and a lobbyist, a one-term county freeholder and the United States attorney for New Jersey.

During the campaign, the state’s deep financial trouble took center stage. Mr. Christie focused on the state’s high taxes, played down his opposition to abortion, and aligned himself with President Obama on subjects like education reform and promoting wind and solar energy. And the new governor was a blank slate on some issues, like global warming.

In office, he eliminated the state’s Office of Climate Change, cut funding for clean energy programs and eliminated New Jersey’s share of financing for a 10-state greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program that is anathema to many conservatives.

But those were billed as pragmatic, budgetary moves. In November, Mr. Christie went further: He revealed that he was skeptical that human activity was responsible for climate change. Responding to a question at a public forum in Toms River, he said, “I think we’re going to need more science to prove something one way or the other.”

On March 11, he pulled New Jersey out of a multistate lawsuit aimed at curbing greenhouse emissions from power plants, and on March 24, he said he might also withdraw entirely from the cap-and-trade program.

Mr. Christie’s opposition to abortion has long been a matter of public record, but he has barely mentioned it unless asked. Then, in January, the governor addressed a large anti-abortion rally in Trenton, saying, “This is an issue whose time has come.”

In September, he vetoed state support for family planning clinics, a move strongly backed by anti-abortion groups because some of the clinics performed abortions. In February, after the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved a much smaller appropriation for family planning, backed mostly by federal dollars, he vetoed that, too. Mr. Christie also applied for federal money for abstinence-only education, something that the Democrat he unseated, Gov. Jon S. Corzine, had not done.

In February, Mr. Christie made a splash in the national news media with a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, weighing in on issues that are not the usual fare for governors, like changes in Medicare and raising the minimum age for Social Security. He derided President Obama’s talk of high-speed rail and electric cars as “the candy of American politics.”

Hm. Sounds like the governor of the Garden State has indulged a little too much, a little too quickly, at the rich buffet of right-wing politics, not only loading up his plate with lots of hard-to-digest fiscal conservatism, but also starting to knock back glass after heady glass of culture-war vintage.

Thus we proudly bring you the latest exhibit in the p3 Separated at Birth museum: The revolting fellow you wouldn't want to sit next to at a fancy restaurant, because you might find out the hard way what's really inside him . . . and Mr. Creosote.

Better "the candy of American politics," I'd say, than a "wafer-thin mint."

(Images: Mr. Creosote and Mr. Christie.)

Sunday morning toons: Featuring The Comb-Over of Destiny!

Trump's leading the polls for the Republican 2012 ticket. There's probably more that could be said, but . . . why?

Today's selections were rigorously chosen -- by a panel of reality-show hosts, right-wing neverwozzers, beltway insiders claiming to be outsiders, Fox News featherbedders, and half-term governors -- from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Mike Lester, David Fitzsimmons, Jerry Holbert, Bill Day, Nate Beeler, Jim Morin, Steve Sack, Pat Oliphaunt, Steve Breen, Signe Wilkinson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Pat Bagley, for exposing the real zombie lie.

p3 Legion of Honor, with Black Arts Ribbon: John Darkow.

p3 Croix de Guerre (Classe): Ed Stein.

p3 World Toon Review: Paresh (India), Cam Cardow (Canada), Martyn Turner (Ireland), Ingrid Rice (Canada), and Frederick Deligne (France).


Ann Telnaes looks at the abruptly wounded feelings of Republicans (and -- oh, joy! -- it features a cameo appearance by one of my favorite Telnaes caricatures).


Mark Fiore's Suzie Newsykins learns how to negotiate like a pro.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation examines what audiences might have seen if they weren't following the Kobe Bryant story.


Tom Tomorrowlooks at some of the ways in which really terrible ideas infect public discourse.


The K Chronicles weighs in on the Bradley Manning case. Wait for it . . . wait for it . . .


Tom the Dancing Bug apparently remembers junior high school a lot like I do. (Earlier this week, artist Bolling tweeted: "Comments on the comic so far: either 'I don't get it,' or 'Subtle, but brilliant, as always.' I'm on the fence.")


SEK at Lawyers, Guns and Money pursues a not-unreasonable question: How do you take your average orphan and turn him into a lunatic in a fetish bat costume? The eyes have it.


No need to keep waiting: This week The New York Review of Books celebrated the anniversary of author Samuel Beckett's birth in 1905 with a look at some of the great David Levine caricatures of Beckett they've published over the years.


Get your entry in the pool today! Comic Riffs handicaps tomorrow's announcement for the Pulitzer in Editorial Cartooning.


Doesn't seem to be a new edition of Red Meat this week, but you can always browse the archives.


The Comic Curmudgeon asks: Is there anything more truly banal than a new artist’s first heavy-handed attempt to shock bourgeois sensibilities?


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman wonders how many fronts American can fight on at the same time.


What's on your Lizst today (continued): Sometime after Disney's "Fantasia," pretty much every major studio's cartoon star got a whack at Lizst's "Hungarian Rhapsody #2." p3 Sunday Morning Toons has featured two best known: Bugs Bunny (Warner Bros.) and Tom and Jerry (MGM), although music rights enforcement has curbed their availability online. The musical shtick was so well-known it was parodied in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?  Here -- while you can still see it -- is Universal's shot: Woody Woodpecker in the 1954 "Convict Concerto," directed by Don Patterson.

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p3 Bonus Toon: In the unlikely event you haven't already seen this, Jesse Springer offers you this meta-take on the Oregon Legislature Rick-Roll.

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Saturday morning tunes: We'd all love to see the plan (Shoo-be-doo-wah)

I vividly remember the filmed performance of "Hey Jude" on the Smothers Brothers show in 1968, but somehow I'd forgotten about this gem:

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That was a single that had no B-side; just two A-sides.

ALA releases Top 10 challenged books in American libraries for 2010

Note that a challenged book is not a "banned book" -- not yet, at least:

A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness. In 2010, OIF [the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom] received 348 reports on efforts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.

So think of it this way: To opponents of intellectual freedom, a challenged book is a banned book that simply hasn't exhausted all of its tedious death row appeals yet.

Children's and teen literature were the two genres most commonly challenged  last year (but see #8!). Sexual explicitness (frequently including homosexuality, even if it's non-human: see #1) and violence were among the most-commonly offered reasons for challenge (although see #8 once again, where some challengers were candid enough to mention that they wanted the book removed because of its politics).

But sexism and racism were also cited as reasons to remove a book from circulation. (regular readers are familiar with p3's disdain for this kind of cansorship-of-good-intentions from the left.)

The ten most-frequently challenged books for 2010 (with the reasons offered for the challenge) are:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson (Reasons: Homosexuality, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group)

2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Reasons for challenge: Offensive language, Racism, Sex Education, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group, Violence)

3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Reasons for challenge: Insensitivity, Offensive Language, Racism, Sexually Explicit)

4. Crank by Ellen Hopkins (Reasons for challenge: Drugs, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit)

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Reasons for challenge: Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group, Violence)

6. Lush by Natasha Friend (Reasons for challenge: Drugs, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group)

7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones (Reasons for challenge: Sexism, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group)

8. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Reasons for challenge: Drugs, Inaccurate, Offensive Language, Political Viewpoint, Religious Viewpoint)

9. Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie (Reasons for challenge: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit)

10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Reasons for challenge: Religious Viewpoint, Violence)

Several perennial disfavorites didn't make the top ten last year, including Alice Walker’s The Color Purple; To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. Moral indignation can only spread itself so thin, one supposes.

Think of this as a summer reading list. (Yes, even "Twilight.") And remember: every time you read a banned book, it makes a censor cry.

Sunday morning toons: No federal employees were furloughed in the making of this post

But then, we ransomed Planned Parenthood funding for about half a billion dollars. DiFi got it right:

When asked what Feinstein thought would help Democrats gain an upper hand she was blunt: "Presidential leadership."

In other news: Glenn Beck stock is down, Donald Trump stock is up, and flameproof Koran futures are promising.

Today's selections were selected, based on a handshake agreement at 10:30 pm last night, from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, the Washington Post, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, Mike Keefe, Dave Fitzsimmons, Matt Davies, Tom Toles, Bruce Plante, Garrincha, Steven Benson, Nick Anderson, Stuart Carlson, Jeff Danziger, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Bob Englehart.

p3 World Toon Review: Ingrid Rice (Canada), Christo Komarnitski (Bulgaria), Paresh (India), and Cam Cardow (Canada).


Ann Telnaes notes that, this time, things are going from the fire to the frying pan.


Mark Fiore invites you to take the test: Tough? Or Wuss?.


Well, it ain't Fritz the Cat: Taiwan's Next Media Animation covers the next big question: Are those 3-D glasses in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?.


In an all-comics issue of the Village Voice, Roy Edroso asks: If cartoons are so big, why don't they pay?


And Comic Riffs has back-story about that Voice special issue. The truth goes beyond even the furthest reaches of irony.


What, me social network? It's the MAD Magazine cover that was bound to happen.


Tom Tomorrow presents the not-very-exciting adventures of Middleman.


The K Chronicles has a better suggestion than Borneo as the place for "Survivor" wannabes to prove how tough they are.


And speaking of survivors, Tom the Dancing Bug looks at the upside of the current economy for that ultimate survivor, Lucky Ducky.


At Red Meat, Milkman Dan shows his entrepreneurial side.


This week, The Comic Curmudgeon says never mind the comics! (but he doesn't mean it).


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman identifies the American product that could turn around the balance of trade.


One of these days . . . ! One of the things I like about classic cartoons is knowing that what is "classic" today was often "topical" at the time of release. Case in point: "The Honey-Mousers," directed in 1956 by Robert McKimson surfed on the incredible popularity of Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners" (which was still in first-run at the time the toon was in production). In fact, Warner Bros released two sequels even after the Gleason series was cancelled. Vocal work by the legends Mel Blanc and June Foray.

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p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer brings this possibly-ominous development to our attention:

News Item: After two court victories upholding their rights to carry a concealed weapon, medical marijuana users now take their case to the Oregon Supreme Court.

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Saturday morning bonus tune: Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on

Dedicated to everyone who thinks the rich deserve even more, the poor deserve even less, and the federal government should always be under threat of shutdown just to be on the safe side.

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Saturday morning tunes: Now it's dark

So I was listening to Julee Cruise singing "Into the Night" from the "Twin Peaks" soundtrack album earlier this week. It's a quiet, breathy song, but at about the 3:25 mark there's a very jarring break -- a softly rising cymbal sizzle followed suddenly by six staccato notes, increasing in pitch and volume as they come at you in a tense and definitely unresolved broken chord.

It sounds like horns, strings, and percussion, though it's probably synthesized. It's over in three or four seconds, the last note seems to echo for a fraction of a second, then there's a moment or two of silence. Then Cruise picks up the song again for a repeat-fade out. That's it.

And it makes an otherwise-haunting song suddenly creepy as hell.

(So does one other thing: At the beginning, Cruise whispers "Now it's dark." That was the nightmarish Frank Booth's line from "Blue Velvet," but you'd have to know the inside joke to appreciate that one: David Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti, and Cruise collaborated on "Blue Velvet" before "Twin Peaks.")

I've wondered for years what that break was doing there. All that, just to give me the willies? I was pretty sure it didn't have a connection to anything happening on-screen when Cruise, as the roadhouse chanteuse, performed the song in an episode of TP. So I did some digging and found the video, with a bit of remix work, directed by Lynch (no surprise there; look at the video's thumbnail), released at around the time of the album.

Four of those six staccato notes remain. And then -- well, it's striking to remember I originally thought the album track version was creepy.
.
Remember: Listen for the brushed cymbal at about 3:25.

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Yes, I enjoy watching those TV ads about state parks in Oregon too

But let's get some perspective, shall we?

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, the state agency that forecasts revenue and expenses, said that for the 2011-2013 biennium, the lottery should net the state almost $1.1 billion compared with just under $900 million from the corporate income tax. And while corporate tax revenue should grow as the economy recovers, the lottery will continue to bring in more through at least 2017, the most distant year the forecast covers.

In other words, in Oregon those least able to afford it, those who benefit least from America's economy, are being cajoled into bearing a heavier share of the burdens of government.

Sunday morning afternoon toons: Kinsley's Law

No, not that Kinsley's Law; the original one:

The scandal in Washington is not what's illegal, it's what's legal.

To wit:

The scandal isn't that GE paid no corporate US taxes in 2010 on over $14 billion in revenue; it's that our tax code is so completely corrupted (with the help of GE lobbyists) that it's not only legal for GE to do this, they can claim. straight-faced, that it's a breach of their fiduciary duty to their stockholders if they don't.

The scandal isn't that Tea Party candidates (and those members cowed by the Tea Party) campaigned on jobs but, once elected, ignored jobs and targeted their ideological betes noires: women's reproductive freedom and health, unions, Planned Parenthood, AARP, NPR, health care reform, and (apparently) the continuing operation of the federal government; it's that there is no price to be paid, legally or politically, for doing so.

The scandal isn't that presidents can now take us to war, in the name of oil-dependent humanitarianism, without so much as a peep from under the covers from Congress; it's that no one even seems surprised any longer by this, let alone alarmed by the implications of our form of government.

Today's selections have been sold to an overseas subsidiary and then leased back to p3, making it an expense rather than a capital investment and therefore amortizable and taxed at the lower rate, from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle -- and other sources:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Adam Zyglis, Rob Rogers, Clay Jones, Clay Bennett, John Sherffius, Bob Englehart, Steve Sack, Signe Wilkinson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Clay Jones (Does anyone under the age of 40 know who Statler and Waldorf are?).

p3 World Toon Review: Lougie (China), Cam Cardow (Canada), and Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland).


Ann Telnaes notes the newest star in the GOP firmament -- and he's already got his own day on the calendar! (BTW, AT's animations are working again, but there don't seem to be permalinks to individual animations. Sigh. Also, savor the irony: Telnaes' animations are now preceded by rotating ads for, among others, Clean Coal [sic], and Goldman-Sachs.)


Mark Fiore inserts the whoopee cushion of truth under the seat of the big chair of reality. (Wow -- I originally typed "whoopie" and my spell-checker immediately corrected it to "whoopee." Why would it need to know that?)


Taiwan's Next Media Animation has a special Multi-Platform Entertainment Industry Two-fer this week! (And you thought they were just about politics and college sports?).


Tom Tomorrow is movin' on up, to a dee-luxe multi-platform orange blog presence in the sky. (Why is "multi-platform" turning up so much today, I wonder?) This Modern World joins The K Chronicles and Tom the Dancing Bug in the ex-Salon diaspora (p3 has been proudly linking to the latter two ever since Salon didn't renew them a couple of years ago; same with Red Meat after Willamette Week stopped carrying it -- even though, inexplicably, WW kept Free Will Astrology.)


The K Chronicles raises the difficult question of our age: Did I win or lose?


Tom the Dancing Bug brings us the inevitable, final shoe to drop in US's dreadful and also inexplicable budgetary problems. It feels so wrong, yet it seems so . . . unavoidable.


The creator of Dilbert took his (hardly surprising) shot at women recently; now Sylvia replies.

Via Comic Riffs, the fansite 3eanuts gives you those lovable, macrocephalic tots as you've always wanted to see them -- treading water in a sea of existential despair -- and simply by noticing the should-have-been-obvious.


Dark Horse Comics pays tribute to the cover art of Frank Frazetta.


At Red Meat, Bug-Eyed Earl is having trouble sleeping. Hope this helps.


The Comic Curmudgeon discovers the one thing that even canine behemoth Marmaduke is afraid of. (Hint: It probably involves alligator skin!)


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman reviews the president's options.


Disney's "Fantasia" meets Disney's "The Three Little Pigs:" That's pretty much the long and short of it in this 1943 Oscar-nominated mash-up by Warner Bros. director Friz Freleng and musical director Carl Stalling retelling the story of the Three Little Pigs to the music of Brahams' "Hungarian Dances." Note the image the Wolf in the introduction is a straight-up visual steal from Leopold Stokowski on the podium at the beginning of "Fantasia."

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p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer is back, and he's got issues (click image to enlarge):

News Item: The Oregon Legislature begins debate on a proposed two-year budget that remains almost exactly the same ($14.8 billion) as the previous biennium. Cuts in schools and services will total roughly $3.5 billion -- the amount the state would have needed to increase the budget in order to maintain the same level of services after factoring in increases in health care costs, step raises, inflation and population growth over the two-year period.

Test your toon-captioning powers at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Late Saturday evening tunes: All the girls and boys makin' all that noise

For reasons that would take too long to explain, I spent 12 hours today volunteering as a judge at a high school forensics tournament: extemporaneous speaking, poetry reading, and public debate, plus other events I didn't attend.

One of the coaches I met today was talking with me -- of course, all the teachers and coaches were -- about the apparently-inevitable funding cuts coming to public education in Oregon, especially to all non-major-sport activities. The coach said to me, I don't mind if they cut our budget again; I just hope they don't eliminate us.

For the record, these are those same arrogant union bastards (who aren't working on a contract at the moment, by the way) that Republicans and Tea Partiers have been pointing to as the root of all evil in the modern world.

So I spent the day in the halls of Tigard HS, with lord-knows how many smart, motivated, organized, articulate, and self-disciplined high school kids. They were great. Every one of them.

And this song goes out to them all. Just, you know, because.

By the way, State Rep. Margaret Doherty (D-Tigard) was there this morning, too, totally in her judging groove -- pretty much the same as she is for every local tournament, as far as I can tell. Thanks, Representative Doherty.